{"id":4290,"date":"2022-04-21T19:52:43","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T23:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stlydias.org\/blog\/?p=4290"},"modified":"2022-04-21T19:52:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T23:52:43","slug":"down-to-the-river-to-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/2022\/04\/down-to-the-river-to-pray\/","title":{"rendered":"“Down to the River to Pray”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cDown to the River to Pray\u201d is a beautiful song first published in a 1867 collection of African American songs.\u00a0 It is classic of various American musical traditions, including African American spirituals and Appalachian music.

You may recall this version by Alison Krauss<\/a> from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a teaching recording by Christian<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Verse)

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way,
And who shall wear the starry crown,
Good Lord, show me the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Refrain)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O sister<\/strong>, let’s go down,\u00a0
let’s go down, come on down,
O sister<\/strong>, let’s go down,
Down to the river to pray<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Christian points out in his teaching instructions, the refrains allow any number of substitutions for the bolded word.  One could sing . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

O sibling
O brother

O parent
O father
O mother
O family

O people
O dear one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you lead with a gendered word such as sister<\/em>, include other genders in further refrains so our singing creates a space that welcomes all, including those of us who are nonbinary. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDown to the River to Pray\u201d is a beautiful song first published in a 1867 collection of African American songs.\u00a0 It is classic of various American musical traditions, including African American spirituals and Appalachian music. You may recall this version by Alison Krauss from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here is a teaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}